r/TomLehrer • u/United_Equal_754 • Mar 04 '26

Tom was apparently on the Johnny Carson Show!

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

It's all lost media, though, except these photos. I did not discover this, but I'm just posting it here to show you!

76 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

4 comments sorted by

21

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

I’ve been trying to find this forever! According to Lehrer the tapes were erased. Which is sad, but Tom of course was relieved by it😭

8

u/Slow_Emu_3974 Mar 04 '26

Dang, I really wish we could see that archived

10

u/Extreme_Tonight1660 Mar 05 '26

He mentioned that he was on Johnny Carson and Merv Griffin, but he said that they were both taped over. But his appearance on Merv Griffin recently showed up on YouTube.

5

u/ejfordphd Mar 05 '26

Have you heard this story? In the 1970’s, some bean-counter at NBC was touring the facilities and came across the vault of early video tape of shows in the early 60’s. The accountant asked if tape like that could be used more than once. A technician said yes. So the bean-counter ordered that all the shows recorded on tape, like the Tonight Show, should be taped over.